Noonan on latest ObamaCare delay: Is there even an ObamaCare law anymore?

posted at 5:01 pm on March 9, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Last week, the Obama administration implicitly announced that they have lately been visited with the dawning realization that their initial extralegal fix to the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” debacle that Democrats created for themselves… actually created another debacle for themselves (funny how that happens, isn’t it?). In November, President Obama decided from on high that he would allow all of those millions of canceled health insurance plans in the individual insurance market that didn’t meet ObamaCare’s magnanimous specifications to be un-cancelled for a year — which, inconveniently, would mean that a whole slew of cancellations would start coming due right around the hottest point of the midterm campaign season. That would mean a lot of awkward town-hall conversations about how forcing people off of inexpensive, minimal plans is a feature and not a bug of the president’s crowning legislative achievement, and Democrats are going to have enough trouble as it is defending their involvement in getting this national disaster passed.

Ergo, in steps the Obama administration with the oh-so-ingenious and legally dubious idea of allowing these un-cancelled plans to remain un-cancelled for an additional couple of years through 2016 — and so what if that leads to the further deterioration of the already-struggling insurance risk pools that look like they’ll be perilously short on the requisite number of young invincibles to keep them functioning? Democrats will worry about that later, ya’ll, ’cause in the meantime, they’ve got elections to win.

Insurers, however — those poor dears — are just a mite more worried about the latest change. Health insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski explained last week:

The fundamental problem here is that the administration is just not signing up enough people to make anyone confident this program is sustainable.

Yes, the law’s $20 billion “3Rs” health insurance company reinsurance program will prop up the program through 2016––and even be enhanced because of these changes. But then the “training wheels” come off and the program has to stand on its own. As I have said on this blog before, I don’t expect the insurance industry to be patient past 2015 before it has to begin charging the real cost of the program to consumers. …

Even if the administration gets 20%, or 25%, or 30% of the eligible group signed-up by March 31, that is nowhere near enough to create a sustainable pool. The long-time underwriting rule calls for at least 70% of an eligible group to participate in order to get enough healthy people to pay for the sick who will always show up first for coverage.

Ah, well. The Obama administration has more delays, changes, and “fixes” where this one came from. The entire ABC This Week panel this morning was basically in agreement that this latest executive amendment was nothing short of a blatantly political bone the administration is throwing to anxious Democrats, and as Peggy Noonan mused, “Is there still an ObamaCare law?”

The talking heads — even those who lean liberal — may complain about Obama’s actions on Sunday mornings. But those who actually have the ability to go out and direct network or newspaper resources into covering the story on Monday through Saturday don’t bother.

They may consider it to be a problem, but the outcome of showing the president is flaunting the rules of checks and balances in the Constitution is not a place where they want to go because of the negative consequences it could have for their team. So better to just talk about it through 2016, and then if a Republican wins the White House and ever tried to do the same thing, you can get outrageously outraged over the Constitutional violations, devote 75 percent of your resources to covering the story and then point to the Sunday morning roundtables to show that — hey! — you were concerned about it, too, when Obama was in office.

I do have to wonder is there anything preventing the rest of the law from being delayed forever? If Obama’s actions are “constitutional” I don’t see how anyone could have a problem with another President kicking the can down the road for years and years.

I do have to wonder is there anything preventing the rest of the law from being delayed forever? If Obama’s actions are “constitutional” I don’t see how anyone could have a problem with another President kicking the can down the road for years and years.

CWchangedhisNicagain on March 9, 2014 at 5:34 PM

And as that sort of behavior becomes accepted the government decides when and against who the law applies and when it doesn’t apply. That is basically the end of the rule of law and ushers in the rule of personal fiat.

Uh, FYI, the purpose of the law was to destroy the health insurance and health care industries so that they can be nationalized, so the answer is “it really doesn’t matter.”

What better way to achieve this goal than by hyper-regulating health insurance, making it mandatory, creating a database and purchase system that not only doesn’t work, but creates chaos, then making the insurance itself unavailable through countless delays, then making pre-O-scamacare policies likewise unavailable?

Yes, Peggy, there is an ObamaCare law, and you helped enact it by voting for Obama, just like another so-called conservative, Justice Roberts, helped make it the Law or the Land by voting with the radical left-wing judges of the Supreme Court.

As long as this lawlessness remains basically unchallenged, Jugeared Jesus will keep kicking the can, knowing full well that the more he does this, the more likely that private insurance concerns will be unable to sustain their financial viability.

This is an unfunded mandate writ large. As soon as the damage is done, they’ll kick the legs out from under the insurance “fixes”, the “too-big-to-fail” meme will rear its ugly head, and single-payer is then a fait accompli.

Nothing to see here, folks. Everything is chugging along right on track.

Will Obamacare be repealed or won’t it? Will Congress fund it or won’t it? Will the web site be fixed or not? Blah, blah, blah. We the people just need to do what we need to do and Democrats be damned. Resist. Refuse. Revolt. EXEMPT OURSELVES! We did not comply with Prohibition and we simply should not comply with Obamacare. For religious reasons. For privacy reasons. For the cause of liberty and freedom and in protest of the idea that the federal government (under one party rule, no less), can force private citizens to purchase anything with our own money. Are we citizens or subjects? Mice or (wo)men? Just say NO to socialism and to the corrupt, unionized, far left IRS: the gestapo of America’s political class. Afraid of arrest? not to worry! After all, the federal government ignores millions of illegals who are breaking U.S. immigration law every day. Our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. All we have to do is just say no to a scheme we all know is un-American and a violation of our most basic founding fundamentals of privacy, self reliance, limited government and individual freedom.

How To Opt Out Of Obamacare. Know your options and become savvy self-pay patients. Join a health care sharing ministry. These are voluntary, charitable membership organizations that agree to share medical bills among the membership. They function similar to insurance, and are probably the best alternative to conventional health insurance. There are four of them, at least that I know of. Three are open only to practicing Christians (Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, and Christian Care Ministry) while a fourth, Liberty HealthShare, is open to anyone who agrees with their ethical commitment to religious liberty. They operate entirely outside of Obamacare’s regulations, and typically offer benefits for about half the cost of similar health insurance. Members are also exempt from having to pay the tax for being uninsured. From the article by Sean Parnell http://thefederalist. com/2013/12/04/opt-obamacare/#.Up9MwGKiM_o.email

The right wing seems risible, swooning over Pooty-Poot, as W. dubbed Putin. They gleefully claim the Russian strongman is Carterizing Obama and act huffy that the only one parachuting into Kiev is John Kerry.

All of these things are being done this way so the Republicans, the people’s House, can’t change this bill. This is sort of like how the Democrats filibustered George Bush’s court nominees, they effectively stopped conservative judges from getting into the system. Now they stop conservative ideas from getting into the health care legislation, which they stopped the Republicans from having any influence on anyway. Does anyone believe this is how the constitution is supposed to work? Does anyone believe the Republicans are fighting this?

I believe they’re not only not fighting it, they’re allowing it to happen. It’s almost like the Republicans no longer care about the constitution.

The insurance companies have standing. They could sue Obama to enforce the law. But they won’t. More proof that the all the traces of the old republic have been wiped away, leaving only Fascist America.

The answer is ‘NO’. Obama has changed it so many times – ILLEGALLY – that the law no longer exists. What does exist is some perverted, [email protected]@rdized piece of illegally legislation being kept alive by a dictator and a gutless GOP who will not uphold their oaths of office – to defend the Constitution and nation from enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC – by impeaching this communist-tutored, hate-spewing racist pastor-mentored Socialist!

Don’t these insurance industry fools realize that Obama and the Dems don’t give a rat’s ass about their pools?!!? Ezekiel Emmanuel said it himself that the Dems WANT insurance companies and the industry to DIE! Their goal is single-payer. All this extra-legal law changing is just a sideshow that hides their true intent.
What fools!!

I’m with limecat on this. No one’s saying we should nominate Noonan for sainthood or anything, but jeez, when people finally start to see the light, we should be saying, “Well, sister, it’s about time. It sure took you long enough! But better late than never. Come on in and let’s have a cup of coffee.”

Can we really afford to be pushing ANYONE away because of their past mistakes?

No, there isn’t. Remember that pesky little thing called the 14th Amendment that teh gheys keep hitting us over the head with? If the law doesn’t apply to Obama cronies, or businesses, whoever is being selectively favored at the moment–then it doesn’t apply to anyone.

To steal from Stepan :
“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Obama Clause.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Obama Clause?

“PEGGY NOONAN.
“115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”

PEGGY, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age, and also Global Warming. They do not believe except they see, and you know, their other senses are dull too. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds and evil rethuglican thought. All minds, Peggy, whether they be men’s or children’s, or transgendered, or LBGT, or the War on Women, or undocumented Americans, or just plain conservative are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with Obama andthe boundless world about HIM (PBUH), as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge, oh, and universal healthcare.

Yes, PEGGY, there is a Obama Clause. HE exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy and feelgood selfless GODHOOD. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Obama Clause. It would be as dreary as if there were no PEGGYS and Krauthammers, and all the little conservatives who had to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the Tea Party fold. There would be no childlike faith then, no EUtopia, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood and adulthood and inbetweenhood and the greatest naivete of all, libtardhood, fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Obama Clause! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire TSA men to watch in all the chimneys on Obamamas Eve to catch Obama Clause, but even if they did not see Obama Clause coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Obama Clause coming, certainly not the RINOs and GOPers and conservative pundit ‘nichemen’, but that is no sign that there is no Obama Clause. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there, as well as there is no proof that the world hasn’t changed and bent over for Obama (PBUH). Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart, and that include pajama boys and girlymen. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernatural Obama beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, PEGGY, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding, not any laws that we don’t want to enforce, or US Constitution, for that matter.

No Obama Clause! Thank God (PBUH Allihu Akbar AH salami bacon my brothers)! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Peggy, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Yes there is… the original version passed by Congress, even though it was passed using slimy rule changes.

If conservatives win in 2016, we should prosecute those who disobeyed the original law and disregard any “waivers” or “extensions”. Since those were not included in the law, they are not defenses for not following the law. This would not only punish those who received favors from the President, it would restore the Rule of Law, return un-Constitutional power grabs back to Congress, and scare anyone from following un-Constitutional Executive Orders in the future!

Why do my posts keep disappearing? I saw it after I posted it and when I went back later it was gone? You guys are making it hard for me to remain posting and it took 6 yrs before I decided to join your little blog .. now I’m starting to regret it .. fix it or just outright censor me .. I could live with that .. this is about the fifth time this has happened and there’s been no undue maliciousness or name calling on my part!